Culture 4: Asian Pacific American Literature

 

Culture 4: Asian Pacific American

A.    Bibliography

Lin, Grace. (2006). The year of the dog: a novel. New York. Little, Brown.

B.     Plot Summary

Pacy is a young Taiwanese American girl who is trying to navigate between her Taiwanese world and her American world. She has just celebrated Chinese New Year with her family. Pacy is trying to find her gift in this year of the dog. Her supportive family and best friend help her realize she is a fantastic person, comes from a rich culture and heritage, and loves to write.

C.     Critical Analysis Including Cultural Markers

This story is told from the point of view of the young character Pacy, also known as Grace. The author Grace Lin writes from Pacy’s point of view beautifully. You can feel the embarrassment she must feel when she dresses like a Chinese munchkin in her Wizard of Oz play. You can feel the love she has for her mother and the respect she has for her when she puts on her overalls to help in the garden. You can feel the longing of celebrating American holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas when Pacy and her sisters encourage her parents to celebrate like Americans.

The family celebrates Chinese New Year with the biggest celebration of the year. There are red envelopes of money, family gatherings, and traditional foods. The stories Pacy’s mom shares of growing up in Taiwan and going to school in Taiwan are representative of the oral traditions and stories from Asian Pacific American culture. The young girl’s given name is Pacy and that is the name used at home and with her family. Her school name is Grace and is used by all who know her at school.

D.    Review Excerpts

Publisher’s Weekly: “When her family celebrates Chinese New Year, ringing in the Year of the Dog, Pacy (Grace is her American name) wonders what the coming months will bring. Her relatives explain that the Year of the Dog is traditionally the year when people "find themselves," discovering their values and what they want to do with their lives. With big expectations and lots of questions, the narrator moves through the next 12 months trying to figure out what makes her unique and how she fits in with her family, friends, and classmates.”

Horn Book: “For Taiwanese American Pacy, sorting out her ethnic identity is important, and she wonders what she should be when she grows up. Writing and illustrating a book for a national contest makes her think that perhaps she can become an author of a "real Chinese person book." Lin offers both authentic Taiwanese American and universal childhood experiences, told from a genuine child perspective.”

 

E.     Connections

Crofford, Emily. (1991). Born in the year of courage. ISBN 9780876146798

Park, Linda Sue. (2000). The kite fighters. ISBN 9780440418139

 

A.    Bibliography

Say, Allen. (1999). Tea with milk. Boston. Houghton Mifflin

B.     Plot Summary

Masako grows up in San Francisco with her Japanese parents. After they move back to Japan, Masako (May) feels like she is a foreigner in Japan. After having trouble adapting to acting completely Japanese, May strikes out on her own and finds a job. While working she meets a kindred spirit who has a Japanese background but raised like a westerner. She and her kindred spirit discover home is where they are together.

C.     Critical Analysis Including Cultural Markers

Allen Say takes the story of a young girl with Japanese parents who grows up in San Francisco, then returns to Japan and must rediscover her true self again. Say accurately portrays the confusion May feels when she is trying to fit in in Japan but finds her strength and joy in working and living on her own. Allen Say brings to life the story of his mother finding herself and finding companionship with someone who has a similar background and is looking for a place to call home.

There are many cultural markers apparent in “Tea with Milk”. May’s parents keep their cultural foods from Japan when they lived in San Francisco. When the family moves back to Japan May must attend a Japanese school to learn how to be a “proper” Japanese girl. Her mother even arranges for May to meet someone a matchmaker has found. May realizes she does not entirely fit in with the Japanese culture her family expects. When May works at the department store, she ends up speaking English and helping foreign customer all the while wearing her kimono. This is where she truly felt comfortable.

D.    Review Excerpts

Booklist: “On the title page of Say's new picture book, there is a small frame from his Caldecott-winning Grandfather's Journey (1993), a picture of his mother, Masako, as a Japanese American child in California. Say tells her immigrant story: how, when she finished high school in California, her restless, homesick father took the family back to live in his village in Japan. Masako becomes a foreigner in her parents' country, longing for home in San Francisco. Instead of college, she must go back to high school to learn Japanese. She must learn to be a "proper" Japanese lady.”

Library Journal Reviews: “When her Japanese-born parents leave America for their homeland, an independent girl reluctantly follows and melds her experience and her heritage to find a new meaning for the word "home." This perfect marriage of artwork and text offers readers a window into a different place and time.”

 

E.     Connections

Reibstein, Mark. Wabi Sabi. ISBN 0316118257

Soto, Gary. Too many tamales. ISBN 0399221468

 

A.    Bibliography

Soontornvat, Christina. (2021). The ramble shamble children. New York. Nancy Paulsen Books.

B.     Plot Summary

This is a story of a group of five young children who live in a house out in the countryside by themselves. The children work together to take care of their home. Upon finding a picture of a proper home, the children try to make their home proper. They realize they have a ramble shamble home and are content.

C.     Critical Analysis Including Cultural Markers

The story is written in a rather simple form with about a paragraph on each page. The vocabulary is not challenging and there is no rhyming. It is rather curious that the children seem to live alone and have no adults nearby.

While the children in the story are illustrated as different skin tones, there is no other clues as to the cultural connection of the children. There are no definitive cultural markers in this story. The location of the house, names of the children, and animals offer no discernable clues as to the culture represented in The Ramble Shamble Children.

D.    Review Excerpts

Booklist Reviews: “In a fairy-tale-like setting amid remote mountains and trees, five children who live in a rundown house learn to appreciate what they have. The story focuses on the daily lives of the children, who are engrossed in the hard work of sustaining a home and garden. There's also an infant, Jory, who loves playing in the mud. One day, they come across a book with pictures of a fancier home and suddenly feel pressure to keep up. They spruce up the place, adding rosebushes, building a fancy henhouse, and raking over patches of mud. But they soon discover the emptiness of the upgrades. Far from improving the place, they've driven out the very soul of it: Jory is gone, in search of new, muddy pastures. After recovering the baby, the children wisely return to their more carefree ways. The spectacle of young children living independently from adults will fire up young readers' imaginations, and the illustrations, with bold colors and sunshine-filled landscapes, will only fuel that fire.”

Publishers Weekly: “Down the mountain, across the creek, past the last curve in the road," five children with varying skin tones live together in a "ramble shamble" house where there's always plenty of work to do. Reading a book they find in the attic, they discover a picture that gives them pause: "Oh, that's what a proper house looks like," says Merra, the oldest, musing at its white porch and neat yard. Together, they decide to "proper up" their home. Finn builds a pink Victorian chicken coop. Locky and Roozle, who care for the vegetable garden, erect a scarecrow, and plant roses. Merra gets rid of the puddle where the baby, Jory, previously "looked after the mud." But the improvements bring their own trouble, culminating in the discovery that Jory is missing (though it doesn't take long to find him). Sweet-tempered writing by Soontornvat (All Thirteen) and affectionate spreads by Caldecott Honoree Castillo (Our Friend Hedgehog) make it clear that the ramble shamble house, with no parents in sight, is perfect the way it is. Looking after the garden and the chickens is hard work, but the children are free to make their own decisions, and to change their minds, too. The underlying Pippi Longstocking–style setting—children living and thriving together—could easily sustain further episodes.”

E.     Connections

Morales, Yuyi. (2021). Bright Star. ISBN 9780823443284

Wang, Andrea. (2021). Watercress. ISBN 9780823446247

 

 

A.    Bibliography

Yee, Lisa. (2022). Maizy Chen’s last chance. New York. Random House.

B.     Plot Summary

A young girl named Maizy and her mother leave their California home and go stay with her grandparents in Minnesota because her grandfather is ill. While visiting her mother’s hometown and her grandparents, Maizy discovers so much about herself, her family’s past, and about the struggles of Chinese Americans in America.

C.     Critical Analysis Including Cultural Markers

The book is written in first person through the voice of young Maizy. The characters are written so well you feel a connection to them. There is an empty feeling and a sense of loss when Maizy loses her grandfather. In the story Maizy learns poker from her grandfather, but she uses his teachings and knowledge of poke and applies them to figure out situations and people she encounters. The family story of Lucky is woven throughout the current timeline of Maizy Chen’s last dance. This background story within a story that ties everything together is reminiscent of Holes by Louis Sachar. The background story of Lucky, the first Chinese family member on her paternal side of the family, tells the tale of his move from China to making a full life for himself in Minnesota. This style of writing really piques the interest of the reader.

The Chen family has a history in their small Minnesota town. There are many old pictures hung in office of the restaurant. Maizy learns that the pictures are paper sons, Chinese men who came to America and bought paperwork to attest their relationship to Chinese Americans who were already citizens. Maizy spends most of the story trying to find her true self; American or Chinese. She learns from her grandparents and her mother that she is Chinese American. Maizy’s grandmother makes some very popular cream cheese wontons in her restaurant. When Maizy questions her grandmother regarding the nontraditional cream cheese ingredient as to whether it was American or Chinese, her grandmother answers “yes”.

D.    Review Excerpts

Horn Book Review: “Eleven-year-old Maizy and her mother leave fast-paced Los Angeles to spend the summer in languorous Last Chance, Minnesota. Oma and Opa, Maizy's grandparents, own Golden Palace, the only Chinese restaurant in the area. Although she finds life in the Midwest boring at first, Maizy begins to make friends and connect more deeply with her family. As she spends time with her sick grandfather, Maizy learns about the history of those who came before her -- in particular, her great-great-grandfather Lucky, whose fascinating life story is told in interspersed flashbacks. As Maizy learns about Lucky's struggles against racism, she also confronts microaggressions and hate crimes that still plague Last Chance. Told through the eyes of a spirited and likable protagonist, the story explores evergreen issues of immigration, intergenerational trauma, and the many dark aspects of U.S. history alongside Lucky's adventures with "sailing ships, outlaws, and a gold mountain." Through this captivating story of the Chen family legacy, Yee (Millicent Min, Girl Genius, rev. 9/03; The Kidney Hypothetical, rev. 5/15) makes the personal political, and prompts readers to consider what it means to be American.”

Publishers Weekly: “In this fast-paced narrative, Chinese American only child Maizy Chen travels with her food stylist single mother from Los Angeles to her mom's hometown of Last Chance, Minn., to care for Maizy's ailing grandfather. As the 11-year-old gets to know her estranged grandparents—mischievous poker player Opa and stern but loving Oma, proud restaurant owners— she must navigate unfamiliar stressors both familial and social, including the tension between her mother and Oma, and microaggressions as the only child of color in town. Over the course of an unpredictable summer, Maizy learns how to play poker, how her ancestors helped to support paper sons, and how to insert custom messages into the restaurant's fortune cookies, all while solving a mystery or two. Interspersed segments reveal Maizy's great-great-grandfather's journey to Last Chance, efficiently conveying historical struggles faced by Chinese emigrants to America. If the book feels overstuffed at times, Yee's (The Kidney Hypothetical) full house of endearing characters and assured voice prevail in a humorous, sincere story emphasizing the taut thread between past and present, and the imperative to aid others. Back matter includes an author's note with historical context, a recipe for Oma's Cream Cheese Wontons, and resources.”

E.     Connections

Collier, Nicole D. (2022). Just right Jillian. ISBN 9780358434610

Oh, Ellen. (2021). Finding Junie Kim. ISBN 9780062987983